Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind.(Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East.(From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last.(Friends of Israel Initiative)

Wednesday, 11 July 2012

Methodist Ministers Denounce Their Pro-Israel Jewish Critics

"There are many paradoxes in the propaganda war against Israel," observed South African writer Steve Apfel earlier this year in a must-read article:

"The most
puzzling of them perhaps would be the way many Christian groups and
Churches side with the Palestinians. On the evidence one would expect
the opposite. Believing Christians have every logical reason to be
pro-Israel, where alone in the Middle East Christendom’s holy sites are
protected; where Christians may pray openly; and where Christian
followers face no pressures to convert.

On the Palestinian side of the
fence none of those freedoms exist. How in that case to explain groups
like the Presbyterians, the World Council of Churches, Christian Aid and
so forth aiming their missiles at the Jewish state? It is the wildest
of peculiarities: anti-Israel Christians.

Population movements tell half
the story, though not nearly the absorbing half. In 1949 Israel hada
Christian population of 34000; today the number is 168000, and growing.
From the Palestinian side the arrows point the other way. Christians
have poured out; perhaps 70 percent who once lived in the West Bank now
live abroad. Bethlehem, Christianity’s cradle, provides stark
confirmation.

In 1950 the city was 80 – 90 percent Christian; today that
fraction is down to no more than 20 percent. So in Palestine Christians
run the gauntlet, while in Israel they practice, while in Israel they practice their faith freely. Yet churchmen aim their missiles where?

.... Christianity under the whip, yet people of the church clamber to help Christian persecutors and punish Christian-protecting Israel. Can men of the cloth, even pooling their faith, justify the perversity? Can they square the circle of anti-Israel activism mixed with indifference to Christendom’s plight hard on Israel’s borders? What if, in good faith and without bad conscience, they cannot? And if goaded to action what would matter most to men of the cloth: attacking Israel or defending Christians?"

Two years ago, influenced by their conference report which cited such Israel-bashers (advocates of a single state for Jews and Palestinians among them) as Ilan Pappe, Avi Shlaim, Robert Fisk and Anglican cleric Stephen Sizer while studiously ignoring mainstream Jewish voices, Britain's Methodists voted to boycott goods from the "Occupied" (i.e. Disputed) Territories, and also voted to review whether Zionism is compatible with their beliefs.

Reflecting mainstream Jewish communal opinion as a whole, the Board of Deputies stated:

"This outcome is extremely serious and damaging, as we and others have explained repeatedly over recent weeks. Israel is at the root of the identity of Jews and of Judaism, and is an expression of Jewish spiritual, national and emotional aspirations. Zionism cannot simply be ruled as illegitimate in the way that the conference has purported to do. This smacks of breathtaking insensitivity, as crass as it is misinformed. That this position should now form the basis of Methodist Church policy should cause the conference to hang its head in shame, just as surely as it will cause the enemies of peace and reconciliation to cheer from the sidelines."

Very recently, the Board's vice-president, worried that the Methodists at this year's conference would abolish the posts of Secretary for External Relations and Inter-Faith Officer, noted the fragility of relations between the Jewish community and the Methodists and recalled:

"In 2010 the Jewish community reacted with hurt and anger as the Methodist Church accepted many of the provisions of the Justice for Palestine and Israel report. This document presented a highly selective account of the history of the conflict, misrepresented Zionism and sought to reintroduce the discredited theology of supersessionism, abandoned by mainstream churches because of its ugly legacy of millennia of anti-Semitism. It was hardly helped by the fact that the motion that started this process in 2009 explicitly and deliberately excluded the addition to the document of any views, either from internal voices or external sources, that would have given it some accuracy and balance.

The report, as well as the shameful manner in which it was produced shattered the good relations between the Jewish community and the Methodist Church. The Board made it clear that normal relations would not be resumed until we saw specific signs that the church was prepared to listen to other views and take them seriouly...

The resolutions that received and sought to implement the report caused serious damage to the relationship that breeds mistrust even to this day. The hurt in our community was echoed by anger and surprise among other Christian denominations."

A few days ago, at their conference, the Methodists reiterated their position:

"In view of the continued building of illegal Israeli settlements on occupied land, as well as the repeated condemnation this has received from the UK Government, the Conference:

Notes that these settlements are illegal under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, as confirmed by the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice.

Joins with the Quakers in Britain in welcoming the June 2012 Parliamentary Briefing of Christian Aid which calls on the Government to introduce legislation to end the trade in products from illegal Israeli settlements.

Continues to work and pray for peace and justice for all the peoples of the Holy Land"

Among the persistent critics of Israel within the UK Christian blogosphere are two ordained Methodist ministers who not infrequently post denigratory material regarding Israel on the blog of one of them; over the past week to fortnight alone there have been a number of such posts on that blog. Several Jews, disturbed by this trend, have during the past year or two leapt to Israel's defence as commenters on posts of this nature. One of the ministers (the blog owner) is invariably courteous if sometimes a tad stiff in replies to opponents; the other (who also blogs elsewhere) is apt to temper courtesy to these defenders of Israel with a barbed, sarcastic wit that seemingly substitutes for a more considered or appropriate response on occasion. For instance, below a post, perhaps best described as ill-conceived, that his colleague had written regarding the Fogel murders, this man of the cloth observed of me:

"Daphne huffs and puffs. I’d say she lives in a Manichaean universe, but she’s probably not bright enough to know what that means."

It seems from a post he made elsewhere that this minister regrets the Balfour Declaration and labours under the misconception that the Palestinian Arabs were "forcibly expelled" during Israel's War of Independence:

'In 1915, during the First World War, Britain made a deal with the Sharif of Mecca: in exchange for an Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire, Germany’s ally, the promise of British support for an independent Arab kingdom when the war was over. But then, in 1917, Britain reneged on the deal and issued the Balfour Declaration, promising to support the establishment of a Jewish state – in Palestine.... It was a formula for a catastrophe. Fast-forward to 1947-48, the UN partition plan, and the blessing of the establishment of the state of Israel for the Jewish people becomes a curse for the Palestinian people – 700,000 uprooted, evicted. Palestinians themselves call this massive dislocation the Nakba, which is Arabic for – “Catastrophe”. Over sixty years later and one generation of homeless, refugee people has become three. There is no reason to be optimistic that it will not become four.'

Some of the latest pro-Israel comments on the several posts regarding Israel that have in rapid succession appeared on the blog in the past week or so have considerably riled the two ministers, to judge by the tone of a rare joint "editorial" that they have posted:

'... "being Jewish" is a complicated, not a monolithic concept, and ... there is no such thing as the Jewish view of things, including, indeed especially on the vexing and volatile issues of Zionism and Israel. [So much for those Board of Deputies' statements, then!]

... Yet there are a few folk who comment on this blog who only show up only when the post is on Israel [well, they are Jews, after all, and unlikely to be concerned with the finer points of Methodist practice and belief], and who act as if Christians who disagree with them are anti-Semitic at worst, and egregiously misinformed and wrong-headed at best. They also seem to act as if fellow Jews who disagree with them are, at worst, disloyal or self-loathing, a disgrace to the cause of Israel, if not Judaism, and, at best (like said Christians), are egregiously misinformed and wrong-headed, and therefore dismissible with due condescension and even contempt....

The ministers added, with what might be considered delicious, presumably unwitting, irony

Churchill said that "a fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.".... Personally, we find "fanatic" or "maniac" unduly provocative epithets, but we are certainly dealing here with people who are obstinate, belligerent, apparently inerrant, and certainly lacking both a sense of humour and the willingness to empathise with another point of view.'

What, I wonder, could have got under the ministers' skins
sufficiently to provoke that outburst comprising their joint editorial?
Was it this response of an always impeccably polite Anglo-Jew, to this report from the Independent newspaper (like the BBC and the Guardian, not known for its friendliness towards Israel) that the blog owner reproduced:

'If
this were being done to little children, it would indeed be cruelty.
But the ‘children’ referred to here are great big wallops of 15 or 16,
strong enough to kill a grown man and old enough to know what they’re
doing. While they might be children according to English law, in
Hamastan they are treated as fully fledged footsoldiers. If there’s any
abuse going on, it’s the brainwashing of these teenage boys by their
cynical masters in an echo of the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army....

A
12-year-old boy has about 75% of the physical strength of his adult
self: combined with the lack of empathy common in boys, this makes him
an excellent weapon in the hands of the unscrupulous. The treatment
described is necessary to shock them out of their feelings of impunity
and invulnerability: the detention is vital to stop them from attacking
Israel. They need to understand that their enemy has no respect, but
just contempt, for their attempts to become jihadis and shahids. You
could call it a form of de-programming.

....
Supposing the Israeli authorities contacted the parents of these
teenagers and told them that, as parents, they were responsible for
their children’s actions. Do you think the parents (as in a civilised
society) would say: “Yes, they’ve been very naughty, we’ll accept
responsibility for whatever they’ve done, give them to us and we’ll make
sure they never do that again.” Or is it more likely that they would
say: “Allahu akbar! Khaybar ya-yahud! My son is a glorious shahid, and I
am only sorry that he did not manage to kill you!”

My
point: the Palestinian Arabs cannot disclaim all responsibility. Nobody
has a right to demand that Jews not defend themselves against physical
attacks. Israel will not be a nation of humble martyrs.'

Was
it this response from a feisty Jerusalemite, a long-serving IDF member and veteran of the Six Day
War as well as of many a verbal skirmish on the blog in question?:

'''every Palestinian child is treated like a potential terrorist" – as far as I am concerned, this is the way the Arab children are brought up. I’ve seen it myself. During the 1st Intifaddah as a reserve soldier I was driving a jeep at the end of a patrol when I suddenly saw a 12-year old standing and holding something bright and shiny. I realized what it was just a second before he was about to throw it at the jeep - and at me. A Molotov cocktail!

....Your consistent attacks on the State of Israel place you in the
camp of enemies of Israel. You’ve done this too often, which is why I
and other Jews appear here from time to time.

As for “Palestinian children are treated differently than Israeli
children”, how many “palestinian” children have been murdered by Israeli
suicide-bombers and other Arab terrorist acts? In fact, I would be
correct in saying that “Israeli suicide-bombers” is an oxymoron! You
have a rebuttal for that?....

Richard .... Your tone is always moderate, I have never felt
anti-semitism in your words, and you allow me a lot of leeway on your
blog.

But when I see time after time that you publish attacks on Israel, I must draw from this a statistical conclusion.

.... As for criticism and its intentions, I think that you’d
have to get far more involved in understanding the super-complicated
structure that is today’s Israel and the pressures under which it
exists, if you really wanted to assist it as a friend. You – or anyone –
can’t just pick a headline from an anti-semitic newspaper – and publish
it as “friendly criticism”. Doesn’t work.

Regarding ‘turn the other cheek’ .... In today’s world this would be regarded as a
Leftist policy.

That is
not the Jewish way. The basic Jewish command is to stay alive. Hence
the Talmudic instruction “He who comes to kill you, get up and kill him
first”. Meaning we show no understanding for those intent on killing us.

A case in point is the Western, Christian world’s weak, Leftist
fumbling around with pre-nuclear Iran, more or less giving in to it,
while (unfortunately non-religious) Israel is preparing to meet Iran in
the Tamudic sense. And of course, to survive it.

That’s why we’ve been around for 3,500 years.'

Or was it this response of mine?:

Christian victims in Iraq; below: in Egypt, Pakistan, and Nigeria

"Significantly,
Richard, you have omitted the part of the [Independent's] report in which an Israeli
spokesperson explains his country’s policy regarding these detentions.
That really isn’t cricket, you know.

As for the delegation, there would appear to be some usual suspects among them.

Ah!
If only certain Christian clerical bloggers devoted as much time
drawing attention to the savagery in the Islamic world against
Christians - their fellow Christians! - as they do in itemising the
faults, real and imagined, of the little Jewish State struggling to
survive.

.... How very sad that the Copts, as well as people in parts of the world who were introduced to Christianity by European
missionaries (colonialists, some might call them) and are cleaving fast
to the Christianity they imbibed, are now left to their fate by
Christians in the West, people who not only through ties of faith but
through obligation and duty should be publicising their plight and
pleading on their behalf. People who, I repeat, are quick to condemn
little Israel for misdeeds real and imagined, yet stay shtum when
innocents are slaughtered by rapacious Islamists determined to oust
Christianity wherever they encounter it....'

In
the course of my remarks, I included a reference to the Barnabas Fund,
which fights on behalf of persecuted Christians worldwide but which has
been condemned by such leftist organisations as Hope Not Hate for
stoking Islamophobia. To quote the Fund's International Director, Dr Patrick Sookhdeo:

I've shunned bloodier graphics of anti-Christian crimes

"We
have been deeply saddened that some Christians regard Barnabas Fund as
preaching hatred when we raise the plight of the persecuted Church, and
the growing influence of Islamism and its impact on the Church and the
Christian heritage and liberties of Western society. We are unshakably
committed to our stated goals and will continue to pursue them with
vigour, for the sake of our Lord’s persecuted people at home and
abroad."

Indeed, in a much earlier post (on which none of us three made a comment) entitled "Responding to the 'counter-jihad'," the minister whose blog it is opined:

'Hope
Not Hate has compiled a worryingly long list of organisations and
individuals that make up this ‘counter-Jihad’ movement....

....Fear and hatred of others are a continuing temptation. The desire for
a scapegoat on whom to pin the world’s ills is never very far away,
especially at times of economic uncertainty.....

.... What I do see is a nasty alliance of fear-mongering bigots who are stoking up resentment and hatred. The fact that there are "christian" groups involved in this is an affront to the gospel.'

Now, in response to those aforesaid remarks of mine and related ones by me, the other minister, Kim, observed:

'Islamic
crimes against Christians — Richard doesn’t need to raise his voice in
outrage because the condemnation is tacit. Nor, in any case, do
Christians have any theological warrant for privileging themselves when
it comes to criminal behaviour. Crimes against children, however — some
people seem to be defending them, so the condemnation must be explicit.

Sadly, there are graphic examples more horrific than these

....
[A]lthough the UK’s Charity Commission ruled that the Barnabas Fund
“does not appear to be inciting racial hatred” ... a quick read of its
widely dissiminated booklet Slippery Slope: the Islamisation of Britain
suggests to me that it is an alarmist little piece of work with a whiff
about it of that kind of anti-Semitism known as Islamophobia. About
Barnabas abroad I do not know and therefore will not comment. If it’s
working for reconciliation and peace, and counselling Christians to love
their Muslim neighbours and to maintain a non-violent witness at all
times, that’s great.'

As for me:

'Daphne ... does more than appear to be inciting religious hatred …'

Later, picking up on a theme of minister Kim's, I observed:

'I would like to point out to Kim that – desirable though
peaceful solutions to conflicts undoubtedly are – in some circumstances
negotiations, as Neville Chamberlain found, are useless. What, for
example, would be the basis on which Israel would negotiate with Iran,
whose leaders, like Hamas’s, want the Zionist Entity extirpated? And
want it extirpated they certainly do, by some means. For militant Islam,
bent on re-establishing the Caliphate, the very existence of a
non-Muslim state in the region – even one as tiny as Israel is (the size
of Wales, remember) – is an outrage. That is the reality of what Israel
faces.

I would also draw to your attention the
many videos on the web in which Islamist clerics inveigh in bloodthirsty
and antisemitic terms (”the descendents of apes and pigs”) against
Israel and Jewish Israelis.

And see this example
of poisoning tender young minds – since you inveigh against Avraham’s
supposed militarism, inveigh against the choice example of militarism
exposed here:

Meanwhile, the erudite Anglo-Jew had observed in response to a comment from the blog-owner:

'Thank you, Richard, for the link to that instructive
expatiation of the meaning of that section of the Sermon on the Mount.
It highlights one of the central problems that we Jews face when trying
to explain our position to you Christians. From the fall of Jerusalem in
70CE until 1947, we Jews have in fact turned the other cheek, trying to
awaken your conscience by appealing to your better nature. That might
have worked if there had been hundreds of millions of us to sacrifice
and all the time in the world to wait until your consciousness was
raised. But Hitler and his millions of willing helpers gave us the
definitive answer. Our enemies do not have a better nature. Would that
it were otherwise.'

And the feisty Jerusalemite observed on the post that Kim proceeded to add to the blog, a post also critical of Israel:

'There should be discussion between Jew and Christian – we both
inhabit the same world, and meet at many and varying tangents. But the
Christian world has yet to come to grips with the concept of the new,
independent Israeli Jew, who is the anti-thesis of everything
Christianity has taught since its inception.'

For a joint Jewish-Christian rally in Rome against Islamic persecution of Christians see here where it is noted:

'While the West is now endlessly focused on “Islamophobia,” a potential genocidal Christianophobia is spreading through Islamic lands. And as the rally in the Coliseum has clearly shown, it pairs up with another kind of hatred: Judeophobia.

Today there is only one country in the Middle East in which Christian numbers are not declining but continues to increase: Israel. The Jewish State hosts a multitude of Christian creeds, confessions and cultures.....

Christians should see Israel as the first line of Western defense in the battle for non-Muslim survival and prosperity in the world....'

I am a Quaker and feel ashamed of the Quaker stance on BDS. I am disillusioned and am wondering why so many (perhaps the most vocal) 'Friends'appear so 'unFriendly' towards Israel. I fear 'Friends' have allowed themselves to be hijacked, naively duped and have slept-walked into being apologists for terrorists. I am now deeply suspicious of the Friend's Ramallah school. Why the obsession and antagonism towards Israel? Why single her out so viciously? I despair.

I am fine with the utter and complete ethnic and sectarian cleansing of all Christians from Arab lands while Christians in the west cheer it on. What's the worst that can happen? They blame it on the Jews anyway.

I think it's obnoxious but very telling that some Christian ministers are so preoccupied with undermining Israel that they ignore what the Barnabas Fund is talking about re the persecution and slaughter of Third World Christians.

At the Bible study I led this afternoon, we were exploring the links between the Tenach and the New Testament. Inevitably, the subject of Israel came up. Especially, as we looked at the promise to Abraham about blessing those who bless him and cursing those who curse him. It quickly became evident that at least one person genuinely believed that Israel had forcibly expelled the Arabs in order to create Israel. There was just no notion of the history of the past century. I did what I could, given the time constraints, to correct the misunderstanding. This person was not anti-Semitic but her genuine sympathy had been falsely won by the propaganda that has been pumped out by the media. I pointed out that Israel had been a wasteland with few inhabitants until the Jews started to return and that most, but not all, of these Arabs had started to come at the same time seeking employment. I also referred her to an interesting verse in Ezekiel 47:22-23. I pointed out that Arabs living in Israel are full citizens.

22 You shall allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the sojourners who reside among you and have had children among you. They shall be to you as native-born children of Israel. With you they shall be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. 23 In whatever tribe the sojourner resides, there you shall assign him his inheritance, declares the Lord God.

Thanks, Ian. So many of the post-1967 generations have been indoctrinated into that belief, by what they see on the television, etc. Thanks to the modern curriculum, they seem to know little of their own country's history, let alone Israel's, and too many assume that Palestine was a sovereign country wrested from its people by da Joos.

An excellent article here,by a Haifa academic, regarding how the Palestinian Arabs are fabricating history in order to undermine the Jews' claim ton the Land - it also shows how the Palestinians are hijacking Jesus for their own endshttp://www.meforum.org/3273/palestinian-founding-national-myths

Terror Groups Eyeing Israel's Destruction from inside NGOs

Two stalwarts go sleuthing:

For their findings cliick on image

"The research suggests that antisemitism is the fuel that primes the PSC engine"

To read the research report click on image

'For as long as these antisemites wrap themselves up in the Palestinian flag, too many people are willing to turn a blind eye. Only against Jews is this type of racism openly tolerated. It is flourishing in schools, colleges, universities, unions and in city councils. In fact, so rampant is the disease now, in some settings you can be ostracised if you do not partake in the frenzy yourself. Bashing Jews has becomes a trendy position for the ignorant social justice warrior. "Palestinianism" is a viral "ponzi scheme" and as it spreads, it carries antisemitism in the undergrowth.' David Collier (2017)

'This new rise in antisemitism, which I had thought long dead, was not shaven-headed white imbeciles from the far right. It was Muslims, a large chunk of it.... Suddenly I grasped that the British far left didn’t want people to know about antisemitism because it pointed the finger at people they really, really liked. From that moment on, it all fell into place.... Time and again the same tropes emerged, the same sort of stuff that Streicher and Goebbels would have commended – and uttered.... And from that a whole bunch of other stuff emerged: the old blood libel business (a favourite of the repulsive Jenny Tonge).... Nice, avuncular, Jeremy Corbyn, with his peace badges, happily laying a wreath at the graveside of Palestinian terrorists who murdered innocent Jewish athletes, oh, and much much more.... It is the same antisemitism, exactly the same: the obsession with Israel to the exclusion of everything else, the conspiracy theory paranoias, the derangement.... Here’s the test – if you cannot see the flagrant racism in the BDS movement, and if you are obsessed with the perfidy of the Middle East’s only democracy to the exclusion of all else, you are an antisemite. That means a good proportion of the Labour Party, including the leader, and almost all of Momentum: no brown shirts, no marching bands, but the same old filth, dressed in the clothes of a polytechnic geography lecturer.'Rod Liddle (2018)

Pro-Israel Down Under

Shalom and Welcome to my blog!I'm the little Aussie blogger who took the screenshot and broke the story of Stephen Sizer's notorious 9/11 post, and I've since broken two other stories that subsequently went viral, one Australia-wide and one, thanks to the sterling work of two other bloggers, worldwide. I remain very surprised and very honoured to have been co-winner, Best Pro-Israel Blog, Hasby Awards, 2013Please "Like" me on Facebook; my Facebook page ishere

'In a region where women are stoned, gays are hanged, Christians are persecuted, Israel ... is different.... Of the 300 million Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa, only Israel's Arab citizens enjoy real democratic rights.... Israel is not what is wrong about the Middle East. Israel is what is right about the Middle East.' Bibi Netanyahu (20 Iyar 5771; 24 May 2011)Scroll to end for more quotations

Tired of anti-Balfour agitprop?

Click image for link

Balfour and Beyond

Click image for link

Try this for Sizer

Sizer 101. Click image for link

'Before the June 1967 Six Day War, there were no such things as "settlements". Palestinians were trying to destroy and displace Israel anyhow. The core problem is not, and never was, "settlements," but the right of Israel (or any non-Muslim nation) to exist inside any borders in that part of the world.If you take a stand that is based on a lie, then that stand cannot succeed. If you try to oppose antisemitism but pretend it is the same thing as "Islamophobia," then the structure on which you have made your stand will totter and all your aspirations will fail. If you try to make a stand based on the idea that settlement construction rather than the intransigence of the Palestinians to the existence of a Jewish state is what is holding up a peace deal, then facts will keep on intruding.' Douglas Murray (31 December 2016)https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9685/britain-little-lies

BDS is Antisemitic

Click image to learn why

The Bigotry & Immorality of BDS

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'Islamophobia does NOT come from the same wellspring of hatred as antisemitism. Antisemitism is a true prejudice because the hatred and demonisation it promotes derive entirely from lies and a repudiation of rationality itself. Islamophobia is a false allegation of prejudice which is deployed to silence rational criticism based on actual facts about attitudes and practices within the Islamic world. [L]ethally compromised even-handedness is to misunderstand, and thus minimise, antisemitic attitudes and behaviour while shutting down legitimate and necessary discussion of the threat from the Islamic world – even to demonise as “Islamophobic” anyone who draws attention to the extent and consequences of Muslim antisemitism.' Melanie Phillips (14 December 2016)

"Selling a house to a Jew is a betrayal of Allah"

To read more click image

Maps of Mendacity & Mischief

Click image to learn why

These misleading maps were deliberately prepared to date from 1946 – intentionally papering over the momentous events that had occurred between 1917 and 1945. Attempts to unravel binding precepts of international law established between 1917 and 1945 – and failing to insist on their being upheld and enforced – has a lot to do with the sorry situation the world finds itself in today.David Singer (2016)

How They Twist the Truth!

Click image for more on the lies

Jews have re-assumed the role of the canary in the mine and are the first to be targeted, but the world would face the same threat if Jews did not exist. Israel has been at the front lines confronting Islamic extremism but has received scant support... For Jews, the writing has been on the wall for a long time. The virulence of the antisemitic hatred closing in on Jews in Europe (and elsewhere) is horrifying... Europe is today facing a crisis as serious as the confrontation with Nazism. If Western leaders continue behaving like Chamberlain and fail to stand up to this global threat, it could usher in a new Dark Age in which the Judeo-Christian culture is subsumed by primitive barbarism. The writing is on the wall Isi Leibler (12 January 2015)

Expose The Lies!

There is a war of lies and deceit on the internet generating unbelievable hate by denigrating and delegitimising the legal rights conferred on the Jewish people by the League of Nations in 1922 and the United Nations in 1945. The idea that there are two narratives on the Arab-Jewish conflict is rubbish. There is only one – the factual truth that details the return of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in its ancient biblical, ancestral and historic homeland after 3500 years of dispersion with the unanimous endorsement of the nation states then comprising the League of Nations.... Generals can’t fight a war without soldiers. Jews around the world need to join the fight or vacate the internet to the Jew-haters and their lies that repeated often enough eventually become accepted as truth.David Singer (2016)

Exposing Lies

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The "Apartheid" Slur

The division of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) into three separate areas “A”, “B” and “C” was agreed on by Israel and the PLO pursuant to the Oslo Accords.95% of the West Bank Arabs live in Areas A and B and their daily lives are under the total administration and control of the PLO since the Palestinian Authority was disbanded by Abbas in January 2013. The PLO has total security control in A and shares security control in B with Israel. Israel has total administrative and security control in C.Israel is entitled to and will continue to take responsibility for the security of Jews living in the West Bank.Jews were given the legal right to settle in the West Bank under article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter. They did so for decades until they were driven out in 1947 and not able to return there until 1967.There are Arab roads only in the West Bank that Jews are not allowed to use. Jews are also forbidden from entering Area “A”. Selling land to Jews is forbidden by the PLO under pain of death. The PLO runs the daily lives of 95% of the West Bank Arabs and Hamas runs the daily lives of 100% of the Gazan Arabs. They have been under occupation – and subjugation – by these two evil groups for the last ten years and given no say in their future or any opportunity to elect others to lead them following the disastrous political decisions of their leaders over the past ten years. Hamas and the PLO do not accept the continued existence of a Jewish State and call for its disappearance. The narratives did not begin in 1948 – they began in about 1917. How do you make peace with an enemy that has been obsessed with not recognising any Jewish national rights in former Palestine for the last 100 years?David Singer (2016)

Telling the Truth

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The Jews of the Holy Land ... are surrounded by hostile states 650 times their territory and sixty times their population. Yet their last, best hope of ending two millennia of international persecution - the State of Israel - has somehow survived. When, during the Second World War, the island of Malta came through three terrible years of bombardment and destruction, it was rightly awarded the George Cross for bravery. Today, Israel should be awarded a similar decoration for defending democracy, tolerance and Western values against a murderous onslaught that has lasted twenty times as long.Andrew Roberts (historian)

A voice of courage & reason

He knows, y'know

An Aussie demo against BDS

On the left, black people are usually allowed to define what’s racism; women can define sexism; Muslims are trusted to define Islamophobia. But when Jews call out something as antisemitic, leftist non-Jews feel curiously entitled to tell Jews they’re wrong, that they are exaggerating or lying or using it as a decoy tactic – and to then treat them to a long lecture on what anti-Jewish racism really is. Jonathan Freedland (The Guardian, 29 April 2016)

An awkward fact for some!

Socialist thought was tainted from its very origins with the heavy baggage of anti-Jewish stereotypes. Robert Wistrich, From Ambivalence to Betrayal:The Left, the Jews, and Israel (2012)

BDS hypocrisy!

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Israel is understandably obsessed with security, but its greatest security lies ultimately not in the Israeli Defence Forces, but in political warfare.... Most of the world is not deeply interested in what happens in Israel, and probably does not want to be deluged with legalistic defences of particular actions. What it wants is a clear, calm, repeated case. It is a case – aimed more at public opinion than at foreign ministries – about freedom, democracy, a Western way of life and the need for the whole of the free world to fight terrorism. Sometimes you hear Israelis say: “It doesn’t matter what we say. The whole world is against us.” You can see why they say it, for they are indeed unfairly treated. But when they say it, they are uttering a self-fulfilling prophecy. If they won’t say what needs saying, no one else will say it for them. Charles Moore (2010)

Once again the armies of the Arab nations are coordinating their military efforts to destroy Israel - whatever they say about wishing merely to regain the lost territories.... [I]f the present Arab offensive had been launched at the pre-1967 frontiers, then the Israelis would indeed have been fighting to avoid annihilation. It seems now that the Israelis were right to maintain the ceasefire lines gained in 1967, and that to do so is the only guarantee of their continued safety.Alan Sillitoe (The Times, 11 October 1973)

A nuclear Iran threatens our existence

Iran and ISIS are competing for the crown of militant Islam... In this deadly game of thrones, there’s no place for America or for Israel, no place for Christians, Jews or Muslims who don’t share the Islamist medieval creed, no rights for women, no freedom for anyone... [T]he greatest danger facing our world is the marriage of militant Islam with nuclear weapons. To defeat ISIS and let Iran get nuclear weapons would be to win the battle, but lose the war. We can’t let that happen...[T]he days when the Jewish people remained passive in the face of genocidal enemies, those days are over. We are no longer scattered among the nations, powerless to defend ourselves. We restored our sovereignty in our ancient home. And the soldiers who defend our home have boundless courage. For the first time in 100 generations, we, the Jewish people, can defend ourselves....Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand. But ... I know that America stands with Israel... You stand with Israel, because you know that the story of Israel is not only the story of the Jewish people but of the human spirit that refuses again and again to succumb to history’s horrors. Bibi Netanyahu (12 Adar 5775; 3 March 2015)

The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews. Other nations drive out thousands, even millions, of people, and there is no refugee problem.... [N]o one says a word about refugees. But in the case of Israel displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees.... Other nations - when they are defeated - survive and recover, but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed.... [A]s it goes with Israel, so it will go with all of us. Should Israel perish the holocaust will be upon us.Eric Hoffer (1968)

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אם תרצו , אין זו אגדה

Most of the present Arab countries were given their freedom after the 1914-18 War, or after the 1939-45 War.... Yet to listen to Arab spokesmen one might think that they had been cheated ... because they have not also got Israel. Israel is only .2 per cent of the land where Arab States have been established. Surely no fair-minded man can begrudge the Jews their own promised land when it is remembered that for every 2 acres that went to make up Israel, 1,000 acres became Arab.... Why is there an Arab refugee problem? The oil-rich countries have the money. There is no shortage of land, and the Israelis have the technical knowledge to show how it could be developed and made fertile. Bring those things together and the problem could be solved. 3rd Earl of Balfour (1968)

January 7, 2015 has already its place in the history of infamy, but also will be the date when the defenders of freedom and democracy will rise and pay tribute to those who died for their freedom and ours. Therefore, we must not forget on which side we are and who are our allies in the defense of the West and its values. Whether we admit it or not, the West is at war with an enemy who will not stop to destroy us...The State of Israel boasts a commandment that, in one of the darkest hours in the fight for liberty Winston Churchill taught: "Never give up". Israel has proven to be a key ally in the fight against Islamism and also an example of how a liberal democracy can resist the jihadist stake and thrive as a Western nation ... Not only France but also all the West should look to Israel to defeat Islamism...friendsofisraelinitiative.org

[I]t’s impossible to believe that an active antisemite wouldn’t – if only opportunistically – seek out somewhere to nestle in the manifold pleats of Israel-bashing, whether in generally diffuse anti-Zionism, or in more specific Boycott and Divestment Campaigns, Israeli Apartheid Weeks, End the Occupation movements and the like....[T]ell me that not a single Jew-hater finds the activity congenial, that criticising Israel can “never” be an expression of Jew-hating, not even when it takes the form of accusing Israeli soldiers of harvesting organs...Howard Jacobson (The Independent, 27 May 2013)

What has happened to the 800,000 Jews who lived for over 2000 years in the Arab lands ...? Where are they in Arab society today? You dare talk of racism when I can point with pride ... to the fact that it is as natural for an Arab to serve in public office in Israel as it is incongruous to think of a Jew serving in any public office in an Arab country, indeed being admitted to many of them. Chaim Herzog (6 Kislev 5736; 10 November 1975)

I stand with Israel, I stand with the Jews.... I defend their right to exist, to defend themselves, to not let themselves be exterminated a second time. And, disgusted by the antisemitism of many Europeans ... I am shamed by this shame that dishonours my country and Europe.Oriana Fallaci

For Western countries to side with those who question Israel's legitimacy, for them to play games in international bodies with Israel's vital security issues, for them to appease those who oppose Western values, rather than robustly to stand up in defence of those values, is not only a grave moral mistake, but a strategic error of the first magnitude. Israel is a fundamental part of the West. The West is what it is thanks to its Judeo-Christian roots. If the Jewish element of those roots is lost and Israel is lost, then we are lost too. Jose Maria Aznar

Israel is, for us, a normal and a special country. A normal country, because it is just like any other democracy. A special country, because the Jewish culture, which eventually became the Judeo-Christian culture of the dignity of man, is the conceptual foundation of liberalism and democracy. This is why attacking Israel is tantamount to attacking Europe and the West. This is also why disputing Israel's legitimacy and its right to existence means questioning democracy. And this is why we are Friends of Israel. By defending Israel, we are defending ourselves.Marcello Pera

Israel ... is beset today by a unique combination of threats. It must defend its people from attack while defending its very right to exist. No other nation in the world faces this dual challenge. To deny Israel's right to confront some of the world's most vicious terrorist groups in order to ensure the safety of its citizens is to corrode international norms from within ... The assault on Israel is one part of a more general assault on the West, on democracy, and on the moral and cultural heritage that grew from the fruitful interaction of Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome ... Should these efforts succeed, similar efforts will certainly be turned against other western democracies.George Weigel

Apart from America itself, Israel still stands as the world's brightest model of national self-liberation based on ideals of individual responsibility and human freedom. Israel's ability to withstand Arab attempts to destroy it in one of the longest and most lop-sided wars ever fought serves as an indelible testimony to the strength of democratic culture.... We know from the past that the West paid dearly for ignoring Hitler's war against the Jews. One can only hope it will not pay as dearly for having ignored or underestimated for so long the Arab war against Israel and the Jews. Ruth Wisse

The choice before us is not between victory and defeat, but between victory and annihilation. We therefore have not the slightest intention of allowing the re-creation of the conditions of vulnerability in which we found ourselves, abandoned and alone, in the summer of 1967. Diplomat Michael Comay (1970)

I am duty-bound to defend freedom, culture, peaceful coexistence, the civic education of children, and all the principles that the Tablets of the Law have rendered universal. Principles which Islamic fundamentalism systematically destroys. This means that, since I am a Gentile, a journalist and a leftist, I have a triple moral commitment to Israel. Because, if Israel were to be vanquished, modernity, culture and freedom would also be crushed. Even though the world has failed to wake up to this fact, Israel's struggle is the world's struggle. Pilar Rahola

About Me

I'm a writer/researcher, with many academic books and articles under my own name. Daphne Anson is my blogging alias. Combining the names of two ships, it's a moniker of special significance to me - I'm a naval history buff. I use an alias owing to a perceived need to keep my blogging and professional identities separate. An Aussie, I've long been interested in
politics and foreign affairs, having studied International Relations in the USA and Britain for my first degree, and I also hold a doctorate. I began blogging in response to the exponential rise in antisemitism and hostility to Israel in the wake of the Mavi Marmara affair.
Another reason I use an alias: http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2015/08/alias-two-ships-daphne-anson.html

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The spiritual awakening which Jews experienced almost without exception last June must not be allowed to become a sealed and finished episode.... Support must be rallied among men of goodwill and their governments if we are to reach that secure and just peace in the attainment of which Israel has never ceased to believe. President Zalman Shazar (1968)

Our judicial system is one of the best in the whole world. Our democracy is the only one in the Middle East.... Just imagine, what would have happened if the Arabs had, like us, accepted the Partition resolution? There would be a Palestinian State living side by side in peace, security, and, I can add, prosperity with the State of Israel, 62 years later. [C]ome to Israel, and realize how small Israel is and what a wonderful place it is. Diplomat Gabriella Shalev (2010)

Israel's Arab citizens are the only Arabs in the Middle East who enjoy genuine civic and religious rights. Religious freedom is protected in Israel as nowhere else, tragically, in the Middle East. And civil rights, of course, there's a supreme court judge who is an Arab, ministers including in my government who are Arabs, Druze, and members of parliament who are Arabs and so on. I would like to see more involvement of Arabs in civil life.Bibi Netanyahu on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show (5 Nov. 2017)